For the holiday season, NARS has released an eye and cheek palette in their dual-intensity formula that contains six eyeshadows, two blushes, and a highlighter.
And I won't be buying
When I first became interested in makeup over seven years ago, NARS was one of my favorite brands. I was ALL about their eyeshadows (they were my luxurious, expensive shadows) and would only wear their blushes. More recently, I've enjoyed the eyeshadow primer and absolutely love the Audacious lipsticks. So on the whole, I am a NARS fan.
But I don't think they ever do palettes well. At all.
When the dual-intensity shadows released, I was really interested in trying them. Swatches seemed a bit hit or miss though, and for $29 each, that was too much money for me to spend on a gamble. Including the dual-intensity eyeshadows in a palette always felt like the best way to try the shadows, however, I'm always so disappointed by the quality and color selection.
And this palette is no different.
The eyeshadow portion of the Give in Take palette:
Photo: Temptalia
Looks exactly like the NARS And God Created Woman palette:
Photo: Makeup and Beauty Blog
The And God Created Woman palette came with a small brush and deluxe sample of the eyeshadow primer and it cost $59. That is a staggering price tag for shadows this small. It's hard to tell in this photo, but this was a tiny palette. On the whole, the And God Created Woman palette did not receive favorable reviews, and many people have included it in their product regrets. The quality and size, they said, were not worth the high price.
Let's talk about the positives.
Like the And God Created Woman palette, the Give in Take palette is $59, but the shadows are 0.07 ounces, which is actually more product than a traditional Dual-Intensity eyeshadow at 0.05 ounces. The Give in Take palette also includes three face products at 0.12 ounces each. So, in terms of NARS's previous offerings, this palette actually is a good price.
Like all NARS holiday offerings, the packaging of the Give in Take palette is lovely.
But the palette itself doesn't make a ton of sense to me.
Photo: Temptalia
The eyeshadows in this are very cool-toned, but the blushes are warm. It's hard for me to imagine a nice smokey eye with a warm peach or warm pink blush.
Personally, these colors are just not for me. They remind me of the shimmery version of the Urban Decay Naked 2 Basics palette:
The colors in the Give in Take palette feel too similar to me. It seems like there are only three distinct colors in it. There's the light wash of color, the brown, and the gray/black. As a warm-toned eyeshadow lover, this color selection makes the palette an easy pass for me. Nonetheless, even if I liked cool-toned eyeshadows, swatches of this palette did not impress me. The Dual-Intensity eyeshadows are supposed to be sheerer when applied dry, but then intensify when used wet. The colors seemed to be especially sheer in the dry swatches, which is a little disappointing.
It could be argued that most eyeshadows perform in this "dual-intensity" way, and there are plenty of formulas where the shadows still work great dry. I'm not a huge fan of wetting my eyeshadows. Taking that extra step is annoying for me, and if you spray water directly into the eyeshadow pan, your eyeshadow is likely to develop hard pan and become unusable. So thinking I could only get nice pigmentation out of the shadows if used wet is a huge con for me.
Despite being disappointed yearly at NARS's holiday offerings, I still look forward to seeing what they will put out each year. On the one hand, warm eyeshadows have dominated the market for the last couple years, so it's nice to see a brand put out cool-toned shadows, but on the other hand, these colors are so plain and basic that they become uninteresting. Adding warm-toned blushes just makes this palette feel oddly disjointed. While I applaud NARS for making an actual value palette, I'm left disappointed overall. Hopefully they will release a palette in the future that's filled with unique colors that perform great. Until then, I won't be buying.
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